Various mechanisms exist for generating and servicing interrupts. Most methods have been developed for PC/AT compatible processors, however. With the advent of new, low power, mobile processors, such as those used in mobile Internet devices, these standard methods of dealing with interrupts are no longer viable or efficient.
For instance, emerging Intel® Atom™ processor-based MID (Mobile Internet Device) platforms no longer resemble the PC/AT I/O complex, but the ability to leverage existing operating system (OS) infrastructure and have reusable device drivers across variations of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)/ODM (Original Device Manufacturer) platforms presents a key challenge to developing new software and services for these new platforms. The value of ‘compatibility’ for the PC is not just the IA32 instruction set, but also the platform hardware topology. Compatibility leads to running shrink-wrap software compatible with older operating systems, such as DOS, through to recently released operating systems such as Microsoft® Vista®. These operating systems depend upon the PC/AT hardware complex, including but not limited to the interrupt controller.